Acer to develop a console-style gaming PC

**Darth Daver** · #1 March 17th, 2008, 05:09 PM

Quote:

Acer's Vice President, James Wong has said Acer plans to enter the console market.

According to the German site GameStar, James Wong was said to take issue with the fact that the current state of the console market relies solely upon closed and proprietary systems. He sees this as an opportunity for Acer to get in on some gaming fun, and they plan to do this by creating a console utilizing PC technology, which will be a completely open platform. With a history of console prices subsidized by game sales, it's hard to imagine an "open" platform being able to compete in that space, and even harder to imagine a company like Acer getting that kind of traction with the consumer. Even if it is just a PCGA spec machine, we don't think it could come soon enough for the struggling PC gaming market.

This could be very interesting if the rumours are also true about EA and Apple. I wonder if we'll end up having about 5 or 6 gaming companies? Somehow I doubt it and I think the big 3 will still be the big3 in 10 years time.

Acer to develop a console-style gaming PC

what's even more interesting here is the fact it's open. Acer would have to sell the gaming PC at a high cost to make any money.

E6600 · #2 March 17th, 2008, 05:30 PM

Who will develop for it? Or will it be just a Windows Box in a different form factor?

Wasn't the MSX and 3DO 'open systems'? They didn't do too well..

downphoenix · #3 March 17th, 2008, 06:39 PM

Acer could get the parts for cheaper than us consumers can, so they could easily muster a 800-900 machine down to price of like 500 for them, since they can take mass production and wholesaling to drive their costs down.

And that's the price they would probably sell it at, it couldn't be successful at a price any higher.

It could do pretty well, but there's a couple of major obstacles to success:

1)Resolution. SDTvs dont have the proper resolution to render PC games with their tiny text and everything. So the console is pretty much locked to HDTVs, either that or many games like WoW would be unplayable practically because of the inability to read the text on your screen legibly.

2)How would acer make money off games? They dont make games themselves, and if this is just gonna be a compact Windows machine, they would have to price the hardware to allow them to make money. The only way they could make money from games is Linux, but how could they keep people from pirating the game then, sine somebody can just steal the source and compile it to their machine. And if it uses a new OS, its not really "open", now is it? Are they planning on doing downloads only? That will shut off a lot of people.

3)PCs arent locked to specs like consoles. If a developer "needs more power" then they just go ahead and take it, instead of making sacrifices one way or another. Acer would have to have a machine that is easily upgradeable, but can be easily done by a common user, for its console to continue playing the PC games as they come.

Fyrus · #4 March 17th, 2008, 07:47 PM

console style gaming PC?

oxymorons ftw.

Descendency · #5 March 17th, 2008, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by downphoenix

3)PCs arent locked to specs like consoles. If a developer "needs more power" then they just go ahead and take it, instead of making sacrifices one way or another. Acer would have to have a machine that is easily upgradeable, but can be easily done by a common user, for its console to continue playing the PC games as they come.

That's exactly why they will NEVER be successful.

People buy consoles because they do not suffer from the PCs need to be updated. You get a 400$ box that will last 5-7 years.

E6600 · #6 March 17th, 2008, 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Descendency

That's exactly why they will NEVER be successful.

People buy consoles because they do not suffer from the PCs need to be updated. You get a 400$ box that will last 5-7 years.

Consoles ftw. That's why the only PC games I've ever played since forever were Red Alert and Red Alert 2

As all of you know those two games weren't power hungry